if we were all the same, would we even realize what sameness is?

back in the day, when my old man was a little man, they didn't so much have the soft-sided luggage. everyone had hard-sided samsonite suitcases except maybe if you were in the service you had a duffle bag. my old man's first suitcase was a small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches which were fitted with those funny little suitcase locks that are all actually keyed the same. back in the day they also didn't have sharpies - they had huge, smelly, black magic markers. so, my old man took a huge, smelly, black magic marker and wrote his name - "little man" - in big kiddie letters on the side of the suitcase. because, you know, it was his. because he was so young, he didn't have much to put in it, so most of the things he put in his first suitcase were things that belonged to his parents. he was very proud of the suitcase and carried it around, although he kept it locked most of the time so that the stuff wouldn't fall out. it can really be a mess when your stuff falls out, you know.

time passed and the little man became a young man and then simply a man, and now he's my old man. along the way he's collected other pieces of luggage and put other things in them. he travels fairly light, but you know how it is, things get kind of stacked up on top of each other and in a sort of ironic way the new soft-sided carry-on is dependent on the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches. my old man is not as proud of his first suitcase as he was when he was a kid. the magic-marker scrawled "little man" looks kind of dumb now, and the suitcase is scratched and scuffed, and the latches are jammed pretty much shut. so, he doesn't like to carry it around and share it, but like i said, it's propping up some of the newer pieces, so it's not like he can just throw it away.

sometimes something will happen - usually something i do - and my old man will take a startled step back with a sort of "oh!" and he'll knock into the luggage cart where the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches is tucked under the young man's duffle and the man's suit bag and the old man's carry-on, beside the footlocker that holds the most-used common gear. and, when he takes this "oh!" startled step back and knocks into the luggage cart, sometimes the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches will shoot out and scoot across the floor.

usually, he can pick it up and shove it back under the pile but worst case scenario - the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches flies out and hits the wall and pops open and his stuff spills out. at this point, this is some really old stuff and it's kind of smelly and moldy. it's just not pretty. and of course the little suitcase itself is no prize, so there's my old man with a mess of his ugly old stuff - most of which belonged to his parents, because when he got it he was too little to have stuff of his own - scattered around his silly childish suitcase. this is embarrassing for him. in order to alleviate his embarrasment he must divert attention away from this mess while he cleans it up. the best diversion is fireworks. so, he will set off some fireworks over THERE while he cleans up over HERE. really the kindest thing you can do is pay attention to the fireworks and be ready with the water bucket in case they get out of hand. he doesn't need help cleaning up - he knows where everything goes and there's really not that much of it anyway and he can handle it.

the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches is one of the most important pieces of luggage my old man has because in it he carries things that are the basis of his self. the things really mean a lot to him because most of them belonged to his parents or were given to him by his parents. sometimes your parents give you some really wack shit, but you have to keep it because, you know, it's part of you. so even though his stuff is now old, outdated, ugly, moldy, and smelly, he cannot get rid of it because without the small, kid-sized, medium blue colored, hard-sided number with latches to hold up its part of the pile, the rest of the luggage on the cart would collapse.

sometimes it happens unintended - we back each other into our respective carts! "oh!" -- but we're all better off when we don't purposefully push each other into the baggage.